When a life is wholly lived for ‘another,’ when it unfolds as an embodiment of justice and sacrificial love for the ‘other,’ it becomes the fullness of life, a perfect antidote to death (the absence of life). This is what we, together with the first disciples, witnessed, learned, and celebrated in Christ’s death and resurrection during the Easter Triduum. As it turned out, however, this was not the final teachable moment in Christ’s earthly ministry.
The Risen Lord teaches us in his post-resurrection ministry, as he taught the first disciples, that the ‘new life’ he has been raised into not only destroys death, but it cannot be contained by space and time either. A life fully lived for ‘another’ (i.e. the fullness of life), is actually a participation in Divine Life itself, which transcends any limitation, including that of space and time.
The ascension of the Lord, therefore, is not a move in space and time, from earth to heaven, which is often depicted as a corner of the universe. Rather, it is a demonstration of, and a witness to, the fact that the fullness of life (a participation in Divine Life), is the substratum, that is, the foundation of all there is.